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Russia belongs among the fast-growing emerging economies and to the Asia-Pacific region – that was the message that President Dmitry Medvedev tried to deliver at the summit of the BRICS group (Brazil, Russian, India, China and South Africa) and during the Boao Forum for Asia last week. Unlike at the Davos Forum, he made few efforts to court investors but asserted that Russia was firmly on the track of modernization and was ready to add value to its cooperation with China, India, Brazil and other ambitious “up-and-comers” (Kommersant, April 16). Nobody raised any objections but hardly anybody missed a peculiar turn of phrase in Medvedev’s interview with Chinese CCTV, where he admitted having different views to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on “the methods...